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<title>and i don't have the strength to stand anymore by CloudDreamer</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29063124">and i don't have the strength to stand anymore</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer'>CloudDreamer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>through the looking glass [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Blaseball (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Capitalism sucks, Dark Seattle, Depression, Godslaying, Implied/Referenced Suicidal Thoughts, Jamazon, Synergy Blood, hopelessness, no happy ending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:28:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,233</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29063124</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Goodwin Morin has fought and she has won, again and again, but this time, is it even worth trying?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Goodwin Morin &amp; The Dark Seattle Corporates</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>through the looking glass [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2144031</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>and i don't have the strength to stand anymore</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She considers running. </p><p>It’s the first instinct, when her security systems start to pick up the movement and the flashes of that intense blue. It’s everyone’s. She’s seen the hunt play out, from the safety of her panic room before. The Corps have been going after her family, one by one, and she knew it was only a matter of time before they got to her. Goodwin considers fighting too. She’s considered fighting every time they’ve come. Her hands — all of them — reach for her weapons but she doesn’t let them take hold. They clatter back to her desk. One versus fourteen... thirteen? It’s only thirteen now. She looks from screen to screen. There is one missing, an empty slot that hasn’t been there for the assaults on the rest of her clan, but she has no idea who could’ve possibly filled it. She looks back through her files, finding… nothing. </p><p>One versus thirteen. It would be exhausting, but Goodwin killed the sun. She could do it, if they wouldn’t come back. She could win the first round with ease, the second with some effort, and in the third, she’d start to tire. From then on, it would be a matter of inevitability. Her mind tries to put together a strategy— dismantle them systemically once, then run. She has a grab bag still ready to go, surely some of her contacts have survived the purge. It’s a background process. She sits, slumped back in her chair as the camera screens start to flicker. Teddy. She’s missing her window. If she reached for the keyboard now, if she put everything she had into it, she might be able to give herself some time. Get into position. Give her all for one more futile fight, but she’s tired. She’s so tired. </p><p>She doesn’t do anything now, just like she didn’t do anything when they came for her family. She hears the sound of gunfire through thick metal walls. Of howls to a moon that will never rise. There’s a ferociousness to how they rip and tear through everything that was once hers, all the artifacts of her home, of her legacy. Everything she has claimed from this wretched world. <i>It’s meaningless.</i>What was the point, of killing gods? She’d nearly died so many times. She’d come out of that fight bruised and bloody, on death’s doorstep, barely standing. She wouldn’t have stood at all, if it wasn’t for her spear she used as a cane. She would’ve died— should’ve died there, really. She’s still not convinced she didn’t. She imagines for a moment that all of what happened next is just a nightmare, the last chaotic moments of a dying mind, but Goodwin’s sure dying wouldn’t hurt like this. It wouldn’t hurt like everything she’s worked for, everything she’s fought tooth and claw to gain, was just someone else’s game. </p><p>Goodwin thought she was a player, but she’s always just been a piece on someone else’s board. She might as well be ripped to pieces as a threat or seized and used as an asset. She’s got nothing left to fight for. At least this way, she’ll be used for something at all, instead of fading into the obscurity that fame hides. </p><p>There’s a statue of her, where the spear that pinned the sun digs into the Earth. It’s nothing like her and not just because they spelled her name wrong on the plaque. She wonders if they did that on purpose or if they really gave so few shits. That monstrosity is too skinny, to start. It’s bigger than her, because it’s bigger than most people, but it’s relatively all wrong. All the curves are in the “right” places, no stretch marks, like the person who made it’s never seen a fat person in their entire life. It’s smiling, wider than Goodwin’s ever smiled in her entire life. If she’d had the energy to do anything more than lock herself in this room after she recovered enough for that first foray into Seattle, she would’ve smashed it into pieces. </p><p>But she’d nearly collapsed, after that much movement, and her mother had rushed her home. Her mother. Taken for spare parts. Too dangerous to be allowed to live. Goodwin closes her eyes so the image doesn’t come rushing before her eyes, but it’s too late for that. If she’d stood up and fought, maybe she could’ve done something. Maybe they all could’ve escaped. Maybe they could’ve fought back again. When the gods of Old Seattle had come for them, she hadn’t collapsed. She’d stood up and crossed lines they wanted to pretend they hadn’t drawn in the sand. </p><p>With a hand on her shoulder, guiding her the entire way. </p><p>She wonders, idly, what this building will become. A museum would be rather amusing, celebrating the history of a rich culture Jamazon themselves destroyed? The Morin family name, put on display as a relic of the past, because there are no more gods and no one else needs to be slain. They will be remembered as heroes, she was assured, but heroism doesn’t pay the bills. Heroism doesn’t keep you alive, when you’re no longer useful, and it doesn’t protect you from a new use.<br/>
Heroism doesn’t keep her safe when the door slides open and the hunt finds her. </p><p>They aren’t as dark as they should be, Goodwin thinks. She cannot help but imagine them as the old gods’ guard, with inky blackness clinging to everything they did. They were creatures of shadow, and the Corporates that stand on the precipice for just a moment, sizing her up and waiting for her to make a move to run or fight, are not. They are washed out, bleached of anything that could possibly make a statement. It’s almost boring, and Goodwin might’ve been ashamed of dismissing them, if she could feel anything right now.</p><p>She hasn’t felt anything in a long time. So she just reaches for the cup of coffee on her desk, takes one last sip of freedom, and waits for them to breach. She tries to savor the dark taste, feel the solid strength settle inside her, but it’s just dust on her tongue. Everything’s been dust, since she fulfilled her mission. </p><p>She won the war for humanity, but is this what humanity is now? Humanity is identical faces, stalking forward with blue blood dripping from the wounds one of Goodwin’s last few functioning automatic security systems had given them, in synchronized motions. The Corporates move with each other, not in formation like trained warriors watching each other’s back, but like mechanical drones, all marching to the same beat. They are wary of her. They know how hard the other Morin fought, and she’s supposed to be the best of them. </p><p>She was, once. She knows she could be again. There's still hope in her, buried deep down, that this take over is just another god to be slain, that there are easy answers at the top of the DEBT Tower. One look into those empty eyes, all different colors but without anything behind them, tells her that's not true. There's no point fighting something that takes your resistance and turns it into merchandise. The Morins were foolish for dreaming of a better world, and now she's the last of them. </p><p>She's the last of the free world, and she doesn't care anymore.</p>
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